The invention generally relates to optical inspection and, more particularly, to a support mechanism for use in an optical inspection system.
Display devices such as liquid crystal display (LCD) devices are used for electronically displaying information including text, images and moving pictures. An LCD may include a number of layers such as polarized filter, glass substrate, color filter, liquid crystal and reflective surface, which may determine the quality of the LCD. To examine whether an LCD is a qualified one, human eye inspection may sometimes be employed. However, eye inspection may mean time-consuming, laborious and imprecise in the mass-production of LCDs. Moreover, with the advance in semiconductor manufacturing, it may become more difficult to examine LCD products with down-sized features by human eye inspection.
An inspection system using a scanner for inspecting defects or features of an object has been disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/345,678 (hereinafter referred to as “the 678 application”) entitled “Inspection System”, filed Mar. 30, 2010 by the same inventors of the subject application. FIG. 1 is a reproduction of FIG. 1A of the 678 application, which illustrates a system 10 for optical inspection. Referring to FIG. 1, the system 10 may include a product under inspection such as a panel 11, a scanner 12, a signal generator 14, an analyzing device 16 and a support frame 13. The panel 11 to be inspected may be placed in the support frame 13 by, for example, an operator. However, prior to inspection, a warm-up process for the panel 11 may generally be conducted to ensure the quality of inspection. Depending on panel size, the warm-up may take, for example, 20 seconds and may thus slow down the inspection progress.
It may therefore be desirable to have a support mechanism that can facilitate a continuous inspection without compromise of inspection quality.